Right after landing 13 Emmy nominations Tuesday, another bit of impressive news for Netflix‘s Adolescence — the mighty limited series that could was by far the most-watched TV title on the streamer in the first half of the year.
In fact, with 145M views from its premiere date on March 13 through the end of June, it was the second most-watched title overall, behind only Jamie Foxx’s Back in Action (with 165M), per Netflix’s latest What We Watched report, which details viewing across every Netflix title from January 2025 to June 2025. It is worth noting, though, that Back in Action was released in January, which gave it a huge time advantage over Adolescence to make up an extra 20M or so views.
To further illustrate this monster performance for Adolescence, it’s more than both Seasons 2 and 3 of Squid Game, which were the second and third best performing titles of the first half of the year with 117M views and 72M views, respectively. Now, consider that Squid Game Season 2 debuted in December, giving it the advantage of the entire six months to collect its viewership, whereas Adolescence just over three months. That also explains the lower tally for Squid Game Season 3, since that released in June. It’s likely it’ll put up another strong number in the next report as well.
As always, Netflix viewers engaged with a wide range of titles in the first half of the year, collectively watching over 95B hours of content, the streamer says.
In addition to Adolescence, several other UK series gained global popularity including Missing You with 58M views, Season 7 of Black Mirror with 31M and Dept. Q with 25M. Per Netflix, viewers traveled all over the world via their television screens, from Denmark to Colombia to India.
More than one-third of all viewing came from non-English language titles, and 10 of the 25 most-watched series in the first half of the year were non-English. That tracks, considering that more than two-thirds of Netflix members also reside outside the U.S.
WWE has generated more than 280M hours viewed across all its events, fueled by the success of RAW since its January debut. There’s also big draws for anime fans, including Sakamoto Days and Naruto, which drew 45M views across all seasons in the first half of the year. Studio Ghibli films like Spirited Away also continue to have a dedicated audience.
Dramas that made a splash in the first half of 2025 include Zero Day, which was the fourth most-watched series in that time frame with 61M, as well as American Primeval with 47M, The Gardener with 34M and FOREVER with 19M. Another title in the Top 10 that’s fresh off an Emmy nomination is Sirens, coming in at No. 8 with 53M views since its May 22 premiere.
Another interesting addition to the Top 10: Ms. Rachel. The popular YouTube personality brought her kids content to Netflix with new episodes on January 27, and they appear to have been a hit. With 53M views, Ms. Rachel snagged seventh place.
There was not much comedy to be found on the TV Top 10, though new offerings like Running Point and The Four Seasons have still done fairly well with 41M views and 39M views, respectively.
Netflix also points out that nearly half of all viewing for the streamer’s originals went to titles that came out in 2023 or earlier. Shows like Orange Is the New Black, Ozark and Money Heist all had over 100M hours viewed in the first half of 2025, while Lucifer, Red Notice, Leo and We Can Be Heroes each had more than 20M views in the first half of 2025.
